‘Worst-case scenario of famine’ now unfolding in Gaza: Global hunger monitoring system
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a global hunger monitoring system, has warned that the “worst-case scenario of famine” is now unfolding in Gaza.
“Latest data indicates that famine thresholds have been reached for food consumption in most of the Gaza Strip and for acute malnutrition in Gaza City,” it said in a new report.
“Amid relentless conflict, mass displacement, severely restricted humanitarian access, and the collapse of essential services, including healthcare, the crisis has reached an alarming and deadly turning point.”
Food consumption has sharply deteriorated, with one in three individuals going without food for days at a time, it said.
Malnutrition rose rapidly in the first half of July, with more than 20,000 children being admitted for treatment for acute malnutrition between April and mid-July. More than 3,000 are severely malnourished.
The IPC alert comes against the backdrop of its latest analysis released in May 2025, which projected that by September 2025, the entire population of Gaza would face high levels of acute food insecurity, with more than 500,000 people expected to be in a state of extreme food deprivation, starvation, and destitution.
More on the IPC alert
- The IPC’s alert is short of a formal famine declaration.
- It said Gaza has teetered on the brink of famine for two years, but recent developments have “dramatically worsened” the situation, including “increasingly stringent blockades” by Israel.
- A formal famine declaration, which is rare, requires the kind of data that the lack of access to Gaza and mobility within has largely denied.
- The IPC has declared famine only a few times – in Somalia in 2011, South Sudan in 2017 and 2020, and parts of Sudan’s western Darfur region last year.
- The report is based on available information through July 25 and says the crisis has reached “an alarming and deadly turning point”.
- It says data indicates that famine thresholds have been reached for food consumption in most of Gaza – at its lowest level since the war began – and for acute malnutrition in Gaza City.
- The report says nearly 17 out of every 100 children below the age of five in Gaza City are acutely malnourished.
- The IPC’s latest analysis in May warned that Gaza would likely fall into famine if Israel did not lift its blockade and stop its military campaign.
- Its new alert calls for immediate and large-scale action and warns: “Failure to act now will result in widespread death in much of the Strip.”
Israeli army says it airdropped 52 aid packages into Gaza, denies starving civilians
The Israeli army says it airdropped dozens of aid boxes in Gaza to “improve the humanitarian response” in the Strip while denying it is intentionally starving civilians there.
“In recent hours, 52 aid packages, including food, were airdropped to residents of the southern and northern Gaza Strip,” the military said in a statement.
Israeli forces “will continue to work to improve the humanitarian response in the Gaza Strip, in cooperation with the international community, while denying the false claims of intentional starvation in Gaza,” it added.
This comes amid mounting criticism against Israel’s near-total blockade of aid into the enclave as images of emaciated Palestinian children have been grabbing international attention in the past weeks. Earlier today, the leading global hunger monitor said the “worst-case scenario of famine” is currently unfolding in Gaza.
Aid theater is all that is, thousands of aid boxes a day are needed to stop starvation, 600 trucks a day, not half a truck load per plane. Plus some if not most of these dropped packages will land in off-limits kill zone areas, which is 82% of Gaza.
